1. Clinical Characteristics of the intermittent exotropia Patients
This study was conducted between July 2017 and December 2019 at Zhong Shan Ophthalmic Center. During that period of time, 61 patients (33 male and 28 female) diagnosed with intermittent exotropia by Pro. Deng, along with 15 age-matched control subjects, were included in this study. The basic clinical information of all subjects included in this study is presented in Table 1. The average patient age was 15.47±7.41 years, ranging from 7 to 36 years. The average onset age was 11.35±6.37 years, ranging from 5 to 25 years. The manifest spherical equivalent (SE) was -1.25±0.85 diopter (D), ranging from -4.25 D to +1.50 D. The corrected distance visual acuity (CDVA) of all subjects was better than 16/20 (snellen). The average AC/A was 4.30±0.23. The intermittent exotropia severity of subjects evaluated by the Revised Newcastle Control Score (RNCS)19 was 5.3±2.9. The IOP of all patients was within the normal range (13.2±1.7 mmHg). Moreover, no fundus abnormality was observed in any of the subjects. In addition, the dominant eye of intermittent exotropia patients was measured by the card-hole method. Among the 61 patients, 40 patients had dominant right eyes, and the other patients had dominant left eyes.
2. Deviation degree evaluation by both conventional and eye tracker qualification in intermittent exotropia patients
Conventional strabismus quantification included synoptophore, perimeter arc, and prism alternate cover tests. First, we evaluated the accuracy and reliability of the eye tracker in measuring the deviation angle in intermittent exotropia patients by comparing its strabismus results with those of conventional assessment. For comparative analysis, the results of the prism strabismus inspection were converted according to 1° = 1.75Δ.
As seen in Table 2, the data obtained from the prism and alternate cover tests show that the average deviation degree of these 61 intermittent exotropia patients was 31.1±11.4Δ at 33 cm, ranging from 8Δ to 50Δ, and 30.3Δ at 5 m, ranging from 10Δ to -50Δ. In addition, the synoptophore tests showed a 26.1±12.8Δ deviation degree, ranging from 0-50Δ, in the included intermittent exotropia patients. The perimeter arc showed a near value of 32.6±7.8Δ, ranging from 0△ to 30△, and 31.6±7.0Δ at 5 m, ranging from 5Δ to -50Δ.
With the assistance of data view software, the eye position data recorded by SR Eyelink1000 were organized into coordinate values. The coordinates on the X-axis represent the deviation degree of intermittent exotropia patients. The maximum and average values were taken into analysis. As shown in Table 2, the mean deviation degree for all subjects was 32.9±11.5△, ranging from 6△ to 50△. The maximum deviation degree was approximately 36.9±12.4△ (95% Cl: 6.5 to 51). Moreover, the correlation analysis (Figure 1) showed that the deviation degree monitored by the eye tracker is positively correlated with that measured by the prism and alternate cover test. However, there is a significant difference in the strabismus results quantified by these two methods.
3. Fixation ability in intermittent exotropia patients evaluated by eye tracker
We also monitored the fixation ability of intermittent exotropia patients with the SR Eyelink1000. The steady fixation (more than 500 milliseconds) was captured and recorded for 2 min by the video tracker of the SR Eyelink1000 and presented as data points (Figure 2). The subjects’ fixation ability was evaluated by the ellipse area that contained 95% data points. The logarithm of the smallest ellipse areas was used for statistical analysis with the Wilcoxon rank test. Our data showed that in normal subjects, the fixation ability was stable under binocular fixation, monocular fixation or binocular dichoptic fixation, presenting a small ellipse area (Table 3). However, unsteady gaze ability was observed in both eyes of the intermittent exotropia patients, especially under binocular dichoptic viewing situations: the mean ellipse area was 4.36 log units (95% CI) in fixating eyes and 4.78 log units (95% CI) in deviating eyes. It is obvious that the fixated eyes were much more stable than the deviated eyes in intermittent exotropia patients (*P< .05), though they were more variable than both eyes in normal subjects (*P < .05).
4. Classification of intermittent exotropia subjects based on eye tracker analysis
After the head position was fixed, the subjects were instructed to gaze the viewing target that flickered in the center of the computer screen. Fig. 3 presents the eye movement recordings of an intermittent exotropia patient by SR Eyelink1000 under four visual situations: simultaneous binocular gaze, right eye gaze, left eye gaze and binocular dichoptic gaze.
The test stability has been verified in normal subjects, showing great test-retest reliability (data not shown). When under binocular fixation, only 59.3% included intermittent exotropia subjects shows exotropia, and the average time beginning to lose control and showing exotropia was 4.1±10.8s, ranging from 0 to 59.1s, and reached their maximum deviation degree at 39.6±45.1s, ranging from 0 to 110.5s (Table 4). When under binocular dichoptic conditions, up to 83.7% intermittent exotropia subjects shows exotropia, the average time beginning to lose control and showing exotropia was 4.6±8.9 s, ranging from 0 to 30.2s, and reached its maximum deviation degree at 51.4±45.3s, ranging from 21.1 to 112.8s (Table 4).
As shown in Fig. 4, the eye position was recorded as dots: red dots represented the eye position of the right eyes, and green dots represent those of the left eyes. According to the eye position distribution characteristics under binocular dichoptic monitoring by the SR Eyelink1000, the included intermittent exotropia patients could be classified into three categories as follows: A) relatively good control ability and exhibits exotropia only in monocular visual situations; B) weak control and exhibits exotropia in all four visual situations; and C) sporadic control and exhibits changeable eye position. Accordingly, we evaluated the severity of exodeviation degree of intermittent exotropia subjects in these three categories by using a well-recognized clinically significant grading method for the severity of intermittent external squint, the Revised Newcastle Control Score (RNCS) .19 Our data shown that type A patients sored lowest (2.6±1.6), and type B patients scored highest with most unstable intermittent exotropia condition (7.9±1.0, * P < .05), suggesting that the classification based on eye tracker could reflect the severity of intermittent exotropia in strabismus patients.
Moreover, we further analyzed and summarized the binocular visual function of these three types of intermittent exotropia as categorized by the eye tracker. The disease course, AC/A, stereopsis, fusion function, strabismus degree and monocular suppression condition were analyzed. All clinical information is presented in Table 5. Unfortunately, no significant differences in these data were observed among the three types of intermittent exotropia subjects.